Data paints grim picture of recession's effect in New Mexico

We have a new picture of just how much damage the recession has done to the economy in New Mexico. The U.S. Census Bureau released new data showing the impact on businesses.

3,000 businesses rolled over and died between 2007 and 2011. Nearly half of those businesses were construction companies of one kind or another. 1,370 of them disappeared.

244 companies in finance and insurance died, and 148 manufacturing firms called it quits.

Jim Folkman follows all of those trends for the Central New Mexico Home Builders Association.

“As long as we have negative job growth or no job growth at all and we continue to lose population, it’s going to be tough for housing and our economy in general to recover in any meaningful way,” Folkman said.

When businesses go belly-up, the people that work for them are suddenly unemployed. That’s what happened to all of those good high-paying construction jobs that disappeared and haven’t come back yet. We know that more than 50,000 New Mexico jobs dried up and blew away in the recession.

Economists say we’re looking at a long, slow recovery in New Mexico, far behind the rest of the region and the nation.